Marquette and Joliet paid no heed to these words. Before they went on their journey, however, they sat down to a great feast which the women had prepared for them. A dish of mush came first. The Indians fed it to the white men with big wooden spoons. Broiled fish came next, but before it was offered to the visitors the bones were carefully taken out. After this a roasted dog was proudly set before them. It was a great dainty to the Red Men, but Marquette and Joliet would not taste it.
"It is very queer," thought the Indians. They could not understand how anyone should refuse to eat roast dog.
As soon as the feast was over, Marquette asked the Great Spirit to bless these kind Indians. Then he bade them good-bye and paddled away in his canoe.
The river grew wider and wider. Herds of buffaloes were feeding along its shores. Some of them stopped feeding long enough to look at the two white men as they paddled past them.
The daring travelers now came to a place where high rocks reached up from the banks. Strange figures were carved on the rocks. They were painted in fearful colors. They had red eyes and long beards. They had bodies like fishes. They were ugly to look at. These must be the monsters the white men had heard so much about.
They were only pictures of monsters, however, and not real ones. Yet the Indians all along the river were afraid of them. Whenever the Red Men had to pass the place, they offered prayers to these hideous figures.
On went the white men, and still on. The river was growing wider all the time.
At last they came to a place where the Indians were savage and unfriendly. The travelers learned that cruel Spaniards were not far away. After Ponce de Leon discovered Florida the Spaniards had claimed that country. They settled there as well as in other parts of the south. They had some villages near the lower part of the Mississippi. Savage Indians and cruel Spaniards together made the danger too great for the travelers.
"We should only be made prisoners. Then we could not go back and tell our friends about the wonderful river." That is what the good priest said to his friend.
It was too bad, for they were told it would take only five days more to reach the mouth of the river. They had made a wonderful voyage already, so they turned about and started homeward.